Page 34 of For Better or for Ransom

“This is Jasper,” the showrunner said when he picked up the phone, as Divya, Sol, and Luke were around Sol’s dining table. The detectives had asked the journalist to help them again in case the conversation with Fairbanks turned understandable only for Hollywood experts.

“Jasper, hello,” Divya answered. She introduced herself and Luke and told the showrunner why they were ringing him. “We were hoping you’d help us with a couple of things while we try to find Leonardo.”

“Absolutely, shoot!”

“What can you tell us about him?” Divya started with a not so innocent question.

“That he’s a fucking great actor and an even better human being. Have you met the guy?”

“Not personally, no. How close are you with him?” If Divya was a bit taken aback by Fairbanks’s straightforward manners, it didn’t show in her voice.

“I’m doing my next television show with him as my leading man. So pretty close.”

Sol cast her eyes upward. Luke was tempted to do the same.

“So you know him well?” Divya continued. She was definitely the most patient of the three of them—and better suited for the particular job of grilling an interviewee who wasn’t aware that he was being difficult.

“We did a sixty-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast Trail together this past summer. Just the two of us. Four days and three nights of walking, eating, and spending every second of every hour together.”

Sleeping together too. Could Fairbanks be the person Leonardo was seeing? Luke still wasn’t sold on the idea of Leonardo and Sandro as a couple, thinking the younger chap was way too pretty for Pascual.

“Jasper, Luke Contadino here,” he said, and Divya gave him a pointed glare. She knew what he was about to ask. She didn’t think that was the best moment to do it. Luke had to try anyway. “We’ve been told by Pascual’s publicist that he was having a romantic relationship. Hearing you talk about how close you are… Could that be you?”

Divya was fuming from across the table. She had a point. He sometimes lacked tact during interviews. But there was something in Fairbanks’s brazen ways that made Luke go for it.

There was a throaty cackle that soon evolved into a loud laugh on the other side of the telephone. “You made my day, guy. As if Leonardo would want anything to do with me!” Fairbanks laughed some more. “I’m not his type. Plus, even if I was, I couldn’t get myself involved with an actor just when we were going to be working together. I already did that once, it ruined my first show.”

“I see, sorry I had to pry,” Luke said. “And you wouldn’t happen to know who it is that Leonardo is seeing?”

“He’s very private,” Fairbanks said, and Luke was about to ask another question when the showrunner added, “I know he made me move the whole production of The Single Dad Situation from Atlanta to London just because he wanted to be closer to someone…”

Divya looked at Luke as if saying: Told you it’s Sandro! Sol stole his notebook from him and scribbled something, returning it immediately and pointing to what she’d written.

“Jasper, you moved the whole production just because Leonardo asked you to? Isn’t that a bit uncommon?” Luke asked.

“He’s perfect for the part. And Meshflixx had been very clear: The Single Dad Situation wouldn’t happen without Leonardo. He realized he had a lot of leverage, and he threatened to leave the show if we didn’t move production…” Fairbanks kept talking and everyone around Sol’s table knew not to say a single thing until the showrunner shut up. Let him spill the beans. “Listen, I’m making it sound way more complicated than it is. It was early on enough in the pre-production phase that we could relocate without any hiccups. And London also has excellent tax breaks. I’ve fallen in love with the city and rewrote the script to set it there, absolute win-win if you ask me—if we can find Leonardo, of course.”

While Fairbanks had been talking, Sol had added some more notes for Luke.

“You said Leonardo threatened to leave the show?” Luke asked.

“His publicist will kill me if she finds out I’ve babbled about it.” Fairbanks chuckled. “But yes. I got scared. We all did. We didn’t want another Bibliophilia in our hands. So obviously we put our working hats on and figured out the way to make this work in London.”

Bibliophilia? Why did that name sound familiar? But it was as if Sol was reading his mind and she kept writing in his notebook.

“We were told by Leonardo’s publicist that he’d left Bibliophilia because the production on that show had been delayed and he had some previous commitments for the same dates, your show actually,” Luke said, after having read Sol’s helpful writing.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Typical sanitized lingo… Look, dude, he just didn’t want to work with Theo Summers anymore.”

“Theo Summers?” Luke asked, and Sol was reaching for the notebook again but Fairbanks was fast in his answer.

“Showrunner of Bibliophilia—and the most boring and pompous person in Hollywood by a stretch. He probably still doesn’t understand why Leonardo would leave his show. He is that self-centered.” Jasper chuckled. Luke suppressed an exasperated sigh. In a world of self-centered egomaniacs, it was easy to point the finger at a colleague’s narcissism and not see one’s own. “I still don’t understand how Leonardo agreed to star in Summers’s show in the first place. I blame it on fucking Bobby!” Jasper continued.

Luke breathed deeply, ran his hand down his face. “Bobby?”

“Robert Lancaster, his fucking manager. He’s supposed to be looking out for Leonardo’s career and his future yet, he gives him one piece of bad advice after the other. It’s as if he wanted to get rid of him as a client.”

“Do you think Lancaster could be behind Leonardo’s disappearance?” Divya was quick to ask.